 Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixup Craft thank you for watching today so this week what did I get? This is what I've got I'm so excited. I've waited way too long for this and creating craft are just so slow on their delivery it annoys the hell out of me but I'm not going to go into that because I've already said my piece to them anyway. Craft is companion the Gemini Junior so I have been very late to get this you know it's been out for a while but I didn't need it you know at that point because I you know my dye machine was fine and still is fine my big shot but I am finding some of my dyes aren't cutting on one run so I'm having to do it again and as a lot of you know my little baby blue died completely just that's it no more so I I did say to myself when that when I would get the Gemini Junior and I was going to get the Gemini Mini but for just that little bit extra more in price I thought no I might as well just go for the Junior one. I don't feel I need to have the Gemini because I don't use a lot of massive dyes and I have a A4 manual Spellbinders one so for me for the minute this is just perfect and it sits perfectly just to the right of me there on my desk okay so this is everything that came with the Gemini okay so I got this 4x6 Regency Swirls 3d embossing folder when you've used a 3d embossing folder there is a big difference from a 3d to a standard embossing folder just you just get such really nice effects so and they're much thicker you know how well that's picking up there but yeah so that's really nice then to go with that I've got this one here which is the opulent swirls I think that says with love possibly or hug oh no hello and love probably use them and that one not I'm not really someone that uses all those pieces there but nonetheless it's still nice to have and then this one here is one of the multimedia dies the first time I've ever seen in person a multimedia die and there is a considerable difference these are 1.5 millimeter thick so they're extra deep and you can cut I mean I don't know off the top of my head but I know I'm sure you can do like the wood you know what's that like balsa wood very very thick cardstock and possibly greyboard things like that I need to have a look like I said this is all new to me so then you get your manual and then you get all of your different mats so I've got here the rubber embossing mat I've got the magnetic shim which is going to be great so it's got your inches and your centimeters on either side and then I've got my metal shim this is something I think I'm going to really you know kind of notice a difference with because I wish I had like this kind of DIY metal shim that I used to use for the the big shot but it was very hit or miss then I have the plastic shim and then you have your kind of base and yeah base plate and top plate which are the same six by nine so that's everything that comes with it but then the reason well the main reason why I really went for it is because on this particular day crafters companion have launched worldwide launch of the brand new double sided dies so these dies literally do that they cut both sides so I'm going to show you in a moment because this is what kind of I was like oh my god I need these these are so cool I want to have them in my stash but when they were showing you they then said but you need this plate and the Gemini and I thought well I don't have that plate and there's another Gemini and I thought well I need a die machine so why not let's treat myself so this came with this with this so basically you got these for free and you just paid for these and then I brought the die machine so like I said it was my treat for myself and I'm really pleased I've got it so this plate here they said you cannot bend this will never ever warp and they are such thick perspex that is so hard so you get two of them and these are what you need if you imagine we're going to be putting cardstock on the bottom with the die over the top then cardstock on the top die and then the plate so I need to work out the sandwich can't remember what it was from the TV show but those are what you need for these double sided and then this came with it as well which was really nice and this is the floral friends floral friends oh my yeah flowers are like friends they bring color to your world that's nice flowers bloom all for you many happy returns happy anniversary awesome at any age that's nice I like that one I like the best wishes the adorable you far apart but close at heart that's nice so yeah I thought it was handy one I use sentiments all the time so that's going to be really handy so I'm going to go and unpack all of this and then I'm going to do a little demo and show you exactly why I fell in love with these dies okay so I have been playing around and I love my Gemini so I'm really pleased with that I was confident that I was going to be fine anyway because so many people recommend it the plates are already starting to get well worn I've used both sides actually as well because that one I did on that one but I think that was just that one I'm going to try and make sure I keep them all that way but you can see there my top plate is still okay obviously it's got a little bit of impression well not warping but you know I mean just little kind of ripples on it but that will get more kind of messed up when I start using my normal dies but I see why they say that you need this however do I think you could maybe do it without them probably you'd have to have a play around um yeah and I think you could probably use these on other machines as well so they don't have to just be for the germini I can't see why you just have to sort out your sandwich you'd have to probably use metal shims now I did find that with the metal shim it helped with let me talk you through so this is the sprigs and blossoms this one's my it's weird it's almost like my favorite because it's just really clever how they do it so this is what I got from one pass I'm going to do one in a minute just so it all makes sense so I've got all of these different ones but I love that that is one die so on one side you put purple and then on the other side I put green and I had that nice little sprig on this one here one side is green card stock the other was the pink and then I just layered the green over the top this one's really nice I love that I think I'm going to use that one a lot so I've got the yellow underneath and then that brown piece on top and then you just get these two on their own so you can just kind of you know use them as and when to kind of fill up spaces so they're really cute so that is sprigs and blossoms so I definitely recommend that one because I think that's really good and considering they're the kind of things that you tend to cut multiple times you don't have to cut as many times so that's handy so yeah I like that one I like the the way that they've done that on the card there I think that looks really nice and they do show you here which I'll talk to you about in a bit more detail in a minute then we've got the peony so this is I haven't used the right colors so that's the one I've got there and I just done the leaf the ones but you can see all the layers there so it does have that alternate feel about it because that's what they kind of are known for is their layered dies and layered stamps but um obviously the double-sided thing it is a patent pending yeah so I know that they would they kept shouting about that on the on the show okay then you've got the rose this was really nice and again it's very similar I've got an alternate rose like this but I found this much easier to put together than I did the alternate rose so again I'll talk you through that in a moment I haven't used the best colors I've just used scraps but you can kind of see how it's going there that top one is like your highlight and then you just kind of work down from that and they were pretty easy to line up again I'll show you kind of how I done it and what's best all the best way that I found to do it and then this one was the Dahlia again I've not used the best colors I just grabbed any scraps but you can see all the layers there anywhere this is the one that I struggled with the leaf the top detail leaf it everything else all the others pass through with just the plates that you need or they say you need for these dies and the top and base plate but that one I had to use the metal shim and then I just carried on using the metal shim so I know everyone's machines will vary in terms of their pressures and they always say that some people's sandwich will be different to the others so it doesn't bother me it's fine I know that now but um yeah that was the only one that I found there to be a slight not error but just a little bit more work was needed so now I'm going to talk you through it all with this one here which is the cosmos which I really really love I just love that image it's just so fun and colorful and everything just love it so it shows you here at the bottom there are the three plates and then it shows you both sides of that plate okay so this one here has this side and this side and it just works just the same as Decoupage you always start with the biggest kind of largest surface spaced die and then work up to your most smallest detail die will be the last one and that's how it works here so within this die here you've got that large plain surface one and then you've got that detail one so this one it's saying to do in like a lighter kind of purple color and that one's slightly darker then the next die you have there it's saying to do it in like a dark yellow and then a lighter yellow and then this is the leaf so the largest surface area it's saying to do in a dark green and then the detail in that lighter color so that's just a rough guide like I said I am just using a ton of scrap that I've got here so this is how they come and you see here there's detail on one side and then very plain on the other so it is easy to distinguish with the bigger ones as they get a bit smaller this probably isn't the best example one I'll put out another one in a second but here there's only that one cut line the outer cutting line so that will just cut that large shape it's then this side that will cut all the little individual holes so that's your detail so that one will go on top of this one once you use them more and more and if you're already familiar with layered dies then it will be fine this one here you can see it's just got that one outer cutting line so that would just cut a large leaf this side here it's got very very thin pieces so that is your kind of like the vein detail to go on top of that leaf so all done in one cut which is obviously nice and that's I guess their selling point for this so I'm going to use this little bit of scrap here for the light so I've got the larger surface area facing down that's on top of one of these plates that they say you need for these ones and then my base plate so that one I'm going to pop there then I've got this really dark green scrap and this is a 350 gsm card stock so I also put through craft card with different weight card stocks and it was fine it worked and that's how I created that little sprig that I really liked so then with this one here so I want a nice kind of let's go for this purple here I'm just going to cut around that one okay so for this one I want it to cut with the larger surface area so that one's going to go down pop that there and then the detail I'm going to use this piece here which is a slightly darker and then pop that one there and then in the center they've got this yellow for this one so I'm going to use this one for the large area like so and then I've got a piece of scrap kind of lemon yellow here for the detail piece on top okay now I could also run through one of the other sets again and fit them on my mat so then I'm going to lay that one down and then I'm going to lay my shim and then my top plate so I'm just going to run that through okay so that was just one pass and let's see how this all comes out oh I must have slipped my card stock on that one but never mind that's okay so this one has cut that clean off it's perfect let me grab my poke tool because it's still in the die and then so is that one so there is just the plane background and then if I just push this one out there we go all those just fall out quite easily I'll do that in a second but that one will go on top of this like that and that darker yellow is going to come through so it sits perfectly over it once I poke out all those holes you'll see that detail more then this one under here choose one of the holes there to release so there is the base and then here is all that detail and it it is nice to just see it all kind of just drop away like that I have yeah you do notice a big difference when you've had like an old machine for a while I've been so used to the way my big shot works that um yeah seeing this it's yeah it's nice nice have something different okay so now you want to work out how to join this up you need to find like a real obscure side so for me it's this one here just kind of sticks out to me so you want to look for that on this one and I can see it's here so if you just use that as your guide line that one up everything else will fall into place and there is one of your layers and then that is going to go in the center like I said I've not chosen the best colors I'm going to kind of work out my coloring a bit better but then oh there's that one there and I will run this one through again but just to show you it's cut through that 350 perfectly in fact I'm going to hide some of this behind the flower so I can get away with that but now that if we work out it would be roughly there I just bring that up you can see the vane detail there I probably not go so dark with my green when I go to do this again although I can still use these now what I would do is put some glue on the back of my hand I don't have sensitive skin I don't recommend everybody does that I know a lot of you do but and then you can just dab that but I also have the Dawn Bibby glue here and it's got such a thin tip that and you don't need to cover the whole thing like with all of those I haven't put tons of glue on I've literally just kind of just done the odd like the very ends a little bit in the middle and that's about it so you don't need to smother them this glue also dries very very clear and it doesn't stay tacky so I think about there so that all will completely disappear okay so minus that little bit there that obviously I missed and then again with this I'm not even going to stick the whole thing all I'm going to do is just that glue to the middle and then you can also run it through with your double-sided sheets where am I here um and uh and then just peel the backing off so it acts like a big sticker but if you use the wet glue you've got room see I can just kind of move that until I'm happy that it's in its place just poke these pieces out here and then with this one I have got like a bit of a kind of triangle kind of there right at the bottom and there's that same triangle like here so that's my guide and just kind of sit it in there and it will completely marry up with the one underneath and then just show through that darker yellow which probably I know you can you can see it I might have gone even darker again actually and then that you also have the pictures that you can look at as well but they've got the kind of triangle so again I'm using that triangle bit there they've got that so the flowers in that orientation so they've got the triangle there about there again it's not you know don't know if you're a little bit out there's so much detail on these so I'm looking at it I wonder where actually if I would prefer it to be like that I'm changing it so there we go and I quite like that they're loose because it creates a bit of a shadow behind the flower so just adds a bit more interest to it as well I think and then that will go behind so let's get that I use that leaf actually more to stick down just pop that behind let's go about there there we go okay so like I said I'm not perfect with the colors but I'm just quickly kind of going through this just to show you in this video you will see these feature I will do a better video I'm just wondering how these are actually going to work on my magnetic sheets for storage I think they might be okay on that surface but because there's a cutting edge on both sides they're raised so these may well have to just stay in the packaging I'm not sure if they're going to actually work on the magnets okay so yeah that's everything I'm really pleased when I see them all together like that I really like them I love the sprigs I think these are really nice love that one I think that kind of really does pop along with the cosmos I want to play around with the dahlia a little bit more but um no first impressions I'm really really pleased I love the concept I think it's a it's a fun idea like so this is patent pending so I don't know how other companies are going to do this I mean they kept saying that they are the only ones that will be doing this so yeah we will see watch this space but just to recap on the plates for these it was they recommend the base plate then the two that you buy so this if you buy the double sided then you need these and then you're then I use the metal shim but they say then it's just that but I found the metal shim worked perfectly for everything because I did struggle with that one with the normal sandwich could you use them in any time machine I don't see why not I think what's going to happen is you're going to have to say they're not there and you've got a metal shim I think you're going to need another base plate or top plate as well because if I was to put those two together these are just as tough as a top plate or a base plate they're just slightly they're obviously like a cloudy effect but if I was to put those two together the thickness of them all right it's a little bit it is a it is a bit more smaller than your base plate or top plate so I reckon maybe I don't know maybe like an embossing not an embossing shim what am I thinking see I've got different plates on my machine so I'm probably saying something that doesn't work with the gem and I'm just play around as long as they're really tough hard shims then I I think if you don't have a gem and I you could possibly get away with it we'll see but this came with this with it all so yeah that's where I got it okay so that's what I got that's what I was waiting for let me know what you think let me know if you have these as well let me know if you love your Gemini as much as I do because this is yeah this is my new one now so like I said it's on my desk and apart from it being noisy that's my only thing but then it's an electronic and my tattered lace one was really loud anyway so hey hey anyway I'm going to go now I will be back tomorrow with a normal tutorial but you and I'll see you again soon bye